She is a professorial research fellow at Central Queensland University[2] Alexandra Aikhenvald was born to a grandson of Yuly Aykhenvald; Natalia Shvedova was her paternal aunt.
Aikhenvald earned her undergraduate degree from Moscow State University, with a thesis on Anatolian languages[4] (Hittite[3]).
She also studied Sanskrit, Akkadian, Lithuanian, Finnish, Hungarian, Arabic, Italian and Ancient Greek.
[3] After graduation, she joined the research staff of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where she earned her Cand.
[6] In January 2009, she became a professor at the James Cook University,[7] where she and R. M. W. Dixon founded The Language and Culture Research Group.